In boiling beet-roots be careful not to break them, or else they will bleed and lose their colour. When the beet-root is boiled and cold, peel it, and cut it into thin slices. It can be dressed with oil and vinegar, or vinegar only, adding pepper and salt. Some persons dress beet-root with a salad-dressing in which cream is used instead of oil; but never use cream and oil. To mix cream and oil is like mixing bacon with butter.
Take a pint of split peas and put them in soak overnight in some cold water, and throw away those that float, as this shows that there is a hole in them which would be mildewy. Take two onions, a carrot, a small head of celery, and boil them with the peas in from three pints to two quarts of water till they are tender. This will be from four to five hours. When the peas are old and stale even longer time should be allowed. Then rub the whole through a wire sieve, put the soup back into the saucepan, and stir it while you make it hot or it will burn. In ordinary cookery, pea soup is invariably made from some kind of greasy stock, more especially the water in which pickled pork has been boiled. In the present instance we have no kind of fat to counteract the natural dryness of the pea-flour. We must therefore add, before sending to table, two or three ounces of butter. It will be found best to dissolve the butter in the saucepan before adding the soup to be warmed up, as it is then much less likely to stick to the bottom of the saucepan and burn. Fried or toasted bread should be served with the soup separately, as well as dried and powdered mint. The general mistake people make is, they do not have sufficient mint.
The best method of having potatoes, if we wish to study economy, is to boil them in their jackets, as it is generally admitted that the most nourishing part is that which lies nearest to the skin. There are many houses in the country where an inexperienced cook will peel, say four pounds of potatoes, and throw the peel into the pig-tub, where the pig gets a better meal than the family. When potatoes are boiled in their skins, they should be thoroughly washed and scrubbed with a hard brush. Old potatoes should be put into cold water, and when the water boils the time should a good deal depend upon the size of the potatoes. When the potatoes are large, the chief principle to be borne in mind is, do not let them boil too quickly or cook too quickly. We must avoid having the outside pulpy while the inside is hard. The water, which should be slightly salted, should more than cover them, and, if the potatoes are very large, directly the water comes to the boil it is a good plan to throw in a little cold water to take it off the boil. It is quite impossible to lay down any exact law in regard to boiling potatoes. We cannot do more than give general principles which can only be carried out by cooks who possess a little common sense. Small new potatoes are an extreme in one direction. They should be thrown into boiling water, and are generally cooked in about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Large old potatoes should be put into cold water and, as we have stated, the water should not be allowed to boil too soon, and it will take very often an hour to boil them properly. Between these two extremes there is a gradually ascending scale which must be left to the judgment of the cook. It is as impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast line with regard to time in boiling potatoes as it would be to say at what exact point in the thermometer between freezing and 80 degrees in the shade a man should put on his top coat. If we may be allowed the expression, "old new" potatoes should be thrown into neither boiling water nor cold water, but lukewarm water. Again, in boiling potatoes, especially in the case of old ones, some little allowance must be made for the time of year. In winter, they require longer time, and we may here mention the fact that it is very important that potatoes, after they are dug, should not be left out of doors and exposed to a hard frost, as in this case a chemical change takes place in which the starch is converted into sugar. When potatoes are boiled in their jackets sufficiently, which fact is generally tested by sticking a steel fork into them, they should be strained off, and allowed to get dry for a few minutes in the saucepan, which should be removed from the fire, as at times the potatoes are apt to stick and burn. When large potatoes are peeled before they are boiled, we should endeavour to send them to table floury, and this is often said to be the test of a really good cook. After the water has been strained off from the potatoes, a dry cloth should be placed under the lid of the saucepan, and the lid should only be placed half on, i.e., it should not be fitted down tight. It is also as well to give the saucepan now and then a shake, but do not overdo the shaking and break them. About five or ten minutes is generally sufficient.
